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Potential New Universal UK Park

tayspru said:
Definitely identifiably a Jurassic World area, if I remember correctly minions were spotted and there was a copy paste of both Hulk and Stardust Racers too. It was found by Alicia Stella who broke the whole project way before anything was public so no reason to doubt it
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Here it is for a refresher plus her comments. I don’t think there’s anything to be read into the choice of themes either way.
 

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Bowser said:
Here it is for a refresher plus her comments. I don’t think there’s anything to be read into the choice of themes either way.
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I thought it was just flavour art to remind people “like hey, this is what a theme park looks like guys”
 
Re : concept art, my point was that someone at some point picked out which attractions may feature, and I feel like they’d have put their (at the time) biggest franchise on it unless there was a reason not to
 
I think quite the opposite. Had they put anything remotely Harry Potter on their the British press would have jumped on this immediately!
Stuff like Jurrasic World is very generic Universal. Even if it doesn't happen no one would notice. But including potter would mean they have to commit to it. Better to play it safe and not include it if there's any doubt that they will have the rights to do it in the UK.
 
Tim said:
I think quite the opposite. Had they put anything remotely Harry Potter on their the British press would have jumped on this immediately!
Stuff like Jurrasic World is very generic Universal. Even if it doesn't happen no one would notice. But including potter would mean they have to commit to it. Better to play it safe and not include it if there's any doubt that they will have the rights to do it in the UK.
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Hard agree. I believe their approach to this artwork would have been find a nice balance of exciting the right people, without over-exciting the wrong people (media/thoosies/potentially conflicting attractions).

In all likelihood, they’ve probably not progressed thematic decisions that far. The research into market penetration, feasibility, longevity for the proposed theme would be a huge sunk cost should it not go ahead for whatever reason.

Not that we shouldn’t speculate on themes at this point. The speculation is great fun.
 
tayspru said:
Re : concept art, my point was that someone at some point picked out which attractions may feature, and I feel like they’d have put their (at the time) biggest franchise on it unless there was a reason not to
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I think more likely they put a random assortment of Universal style attractions just to create a general impression rather than hint at any specifics.

I can’t imagine anyone seriously expects both a Hulk and Stardust Racer clone to appear.
 
The thing with HP, there’s always going to be two camps until we hear more. That being said, I have enough reason to believe that the current plan is that HP won’t appear in any U.K. park, and because I can’t go into any more detail beyond that I’m going to disengage from the back and forth here. The three words that put my mind to rest a while ago

“Not a chance”

Has anyone been able to snoop through any planning docs or government meeting notes lately to see where we are up to on the official side of things? That article that circulated did imply we were weeks away from some kind of confirmation of the project as a whole
 
Sorry I don’t agree that part of the reason they wouldn’t have HP because HP Watford would need exclusivity to survive.
If you look at Studio Ghibli in Japan they have a museum and a separate theme park in another part of Japan.
Watford is more like a museum and there isn’t even a dark ride the same as Madam Tussaud’s. At Uni Japan there wasn’t any area where you can see detailed props or an audio walking tour etc about the films.
If Uni UK was purely HP then I could agree but there would be other areas in the park. So I don’t see having HP at the UK Uni as any real threat to other HP attractions in the UK or worldwide.
I guess we’ll have to wait and see but first we need confirmation this is even going ahead. I really hope they build Uni and tbh I don’t really mind what the theming is as long as the rides are awesome.


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ZeldaAlton said:
Sorry I don’t agree that part of the reason they wouldn’t have HP because HP Watford would need exclusivity to survive.
If you look at Studio Ghibli in Japan they have a museum and a separate theme park in another part of Japan.
Watford is more like a museum and there isn’t even a dark ride the same as Madam Tussaud’s. At Uni Japan there wasn’t any area where you can see detailed props or an audio walking tour etc about the films.
If Uni UK was purely HP then I could agree but there would be other areas in the park. So I don’t see having HP at the UK Uni as any real threat to other HP attractions in the UK or worldwide.
I guess we’ll have to wait and see but first we need confirmation this is even going ahead. I really hope they build Uni and tbh I don’t really mind what the theming is as long as the rides are awesome.


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The reasons that were given were WB doesn’t want a competitor just up the road, we can all say they’re different but the studios tour atm prints money for WB. There is a chance their profits could be impacted if rights were given to Uni to build a HP land.

The other reason is they didn’t want to encroach on Orlando, not even rides but this one specific IP because let’s be honest it’s probably a large part of why British families go to Orlando and universal specifically.

The next reason was the expense. Universal has to pay for the HP per park, it’s supposed to be insanely expensive. They also have to pay for additions, for example if I’m remembering this right they had to pay extra to build that Hagrid ride. Then you have the merchandising, etc which WB and JK get a huge chunk of.

I’m pretty sure the HP IP for Orlando was near enough half a billion dollars for Epic, that’s before they even built anything.

At the end of the day that’s all meaningless if WB doesn’t want to sell the rights for the UK which is ultimately their decision.

I don’t think we can compare Japan, the studio tour in Japan isn’t the OG, it’s got mostly replicas, it’s not where the movies were actually filmed and Japanese tourists don’t make up a sizeable chunk of Orlando’s visitors.
 
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Blackrock said:
let’s be honest it’s probably a large part of why British families go to Orlando and universal specifically.
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I’m not sure about this (or how we’d measure it in any meaningful way) but the demographic for Orlando is very different as its families who can afford to stump up five figures to visit. The question then becomes does that outweigh the percentage of Europeans who would be drawn to a UK version versus the unattainable US version. I’m presuming the vast majority of visitors remain domestic?

And again there’s the Disney example which shows that it won’t necessarily cannibalise their own business by imitating IP in Europe.
 
Bowser said:
I’m not sure about this (or how we’d measure it in any meaningful way) but the demographic for Orlando is very different as its families who can afford to stump up five figures to visit. The question then becomes does that outweigh the percentage of Europeans who would be drawn to a UK version versus the unattainable US version. I’m presuming the vast majority of visitors remain domestic?

And again there’s the Disney example which shows that it won’t necessarily cannibalise their own business by imitating IP in Europe.
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I’ve seen somewhere that 20% of universals guests are from the UK. So that’s in the high hundreds of thousands minimum.

Would you take the risk? I’m not sure if I would personally when potter is probably their most popular IP.
 
Blackrock said:
I’ve seen somewhere that 20% of universals guests are from the UK. So that’s in the high hundreds of thousands minimum.

Would you take the risk? I’m not sure if I would personally when potter is probably their most popular IP.
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Interesting! Though even if true presumably they’re visiting for more than HP considering what Orlando has to offer, just as people from the UK continue to visit Disney World,

I’m fully expecting any UK park to be the junior version compared to Orlando no matter the IP involved.

In the end, if they CAN use the IP I think they will.
 
The only way I see Harry Potter happening would be if Universal were to buy Warner Brothers, this was floated in like 2023 but nothing came of it. This would free up the rights issue I imagine but I still would think that giving guests a reason to visit Orlando as it’s the only place to experience Harry Potter would be a smart move
 
I could see them adding HP, yes you may decrease the amount of people from the UK going to the US, but either way you will do that.

Universal also can get a major boost, yes less people are going to Florida but how many more people will you get to go to the UK one, the amount of people able to afford the multiple thousand pound trip to Florida will be much less than the amount of people who can afford the couple hundred pounds to travel to and visit the UK park, not adding HP could be like shooting yourself in the foot.

a side note is also that the people who may have travelled to the US are also now not going to Disney, this means they have more money for universal as they aren't spending the money on Disney, flights, etc.

WB also is an interesting one, I am curious to see how they would be impacted, currently the tickets are £56, universal would probably be charging more for entrance so it could be seen as an alternative cheaper day out (although £56 seems very expensive) and it also has the props, scenes, the actual train used in filming (removed from in service *grumble*) and much more, making it more of a harry potter focused thing, I think it could be improved as potter fans come to the UK to experience platform 9 and 3/4 (maybe going on the Hogwarts express train thing they run), then go to the studio tour, then go to universal.
 
Blackrock said:
I’d love Harry Potter but people in the know Alicia included have said it’s not happening for a multitude of reasons so I’m going with what they’ve said.
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Things can change though.... but If this means we get Middle Earth instead of another Potterverse I'm definitely not complaining. :) :) :)

If they go with Wicked instead of both.....my oh my that would be hugely disappointing for my tastes.
 
I think Universal will consider HP. It wouldn't surprise me if we saw it as part of 'phase two'. I suppose Universal will find out whether they can gain the rights to use it or not.

I don't buy the argument that it would damage the studio's tour. One would be a theme park, and the other is already a popular studio tour, where you can see the genuine sets and props used in the films. Both are uniquely different. If anything, a 'HP World' in the UK could benefit both businesses.
 
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